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You may think you have a right and a duty, as a concerned parent, to peek into your children’s social lives by accessing their online status updates, chat streams, and text messages. Please don’t, says Raphael Bromilow, 17. His mom, Joy, adds her thoughts to the big debate below.
by Raphael Bromilow*
There comes that point in everyone’s life when they seriously consider committing a terrible, terrible act: unfriending their grandmother on Facebook. And, in my case, a whole host of miscellaneous relatives and dreaded family friends.
In hindsight, there’s a noticeable build-up to that moment when your mouse hovers over the unfriend button, wondering what could bring about the realisation that they are no longer active in your online life.
In the case of relatives over the age of 45, the progression from family member to World’s Greatest Stalker seems to happen over the course of a few weeks. They start liking everything you post, commenting on every picture you’re tagged in, and of course criticising your vocabulary.
From the sheer amount of posts you remove from your wall per day, you can deduce that this unfortunate soul has never heard of the useful and multi-functional private message.
In addition to this cringeworthy behaviour, my family (according to their profiles) has become a hive of right wing extremists. I think it’s important for the older generation to understand the meaning of the word “reputation”. If you become an hourly source of heavily slanted and biased news reports, I am going to unfriend you. I don’t need that in my life.
The combination of all of the above appeared in the form of my late grandmother. There are certain things grandparents say, certain phrases they use and certain assumptions they make about your sexuality, religious convictions and habits, which should be kept to the privacy of personal conversation.
There was something that sounded condescending in everything she typed. I was terrified that her conservative, Islamophobic side would leech onto the internet and that I would somehow be embroiled in it.
I understand that as a parent or grandparent, your concern for the young people in your life and what they involve themselves in online is as real as your concern for whether or not they’re making bad choices in day to day reality.
I understand that you want your children to be safe, to be wise, and to make good choices, but following their every move online is a breach of their privacy, and can breed contempt and anger.
The same goes to parents who make an “agreement” – it’s not really an agreement when your child can’t say no – whereby the parent can monitor their teenager’s profiles and pages. If your child is old enough to be using social media (13 and up for Facebook), they are old enough to decide who they befriend.
If you’re worried that they’ll make bad decisions, speak to them about it and see why they would make such choices. You can only influence the young people in your life so much. I know I’ve done things my parents wouldn’t be proud of, even things they’ve explicitly told me not to do. I would have done those things anyway. I have learnt from the mistakes I’ve made and I’ve managed not to injure myself in the process.
I’ve heard horror stories about mothers who’ve picked through their sons’ contact lists, weeding out girls who they’ve thought were “provocatively” dressed. I’ve heard about parents who’ve discussed every post their daughter makes. I wonder if they realise how much their kids hate them. How is that normal?
I know it’s only natural to care, so don’t hate yourself for worrying, but, please, try to put yourself in the shoes of the person before you, young and curious and outspoken. Try imagine what effect the words you are about to say would have on you.
It’s far, far easier said than done, but it’s worth it. I can always tell when my parents have thought about me and how I think before they’ve spoken to me and I’ve always been immensely grateful.
by Joy-Anne Bromilow
‘But I just need to know my teen is okay’
Everyone has a right to privacy, but if all else fails, and you suspect your teen may be in trouble, you should be able to delve into their online lives, argues Raphael’s mom, Joy-Anne Bromilow.
When Raphael was about 14, I picked up his phone and scrolled through his latest message thread (stop judging, you know you’ve done it at least once.) The only thing that shocked me was the high volume of swear words that seemed to punctuate every sentence. I was pleased, however, to see he used actual punctuation and no text speak. That’s my boy.
I have been blatant about stalking his crushes over the years because, well, I was curious as to my boy’s taste. More than once he caught me checking out the Facebook of someone in his class, and either accused me of being creepy or rolled his eyes and left me to it. Now that he’s secured Literally the Best Girlfriend in the World, I don’t need to bother anymore.
These examples aside, I have never felt the need to spy on his social media activity, read his emails or Whatsapps, or publically chastise him for something he’s posted. I believe the worst I’ve done is over-tag him in photos but hey, I’m a photographer and he uses enough of my images as profile pics.
The reason I leave him to his online devices is not because I’m disinterested in his life, but because we have always had an open and honest relationship. Oh, I am sure he keeps stuff from me. I would hope so. We all have the right to autonomy, to privacy, to share only what we choose with whom we want. And frankly, does any mother of any teen boy really want to know everything?
But if I ever suspected he was in some sort of trouble, drugs, cyber bullying, cutting, a mental health issue – and if I couldn’t get him to open up, no matter what I said, and only once I had explored all other avenues, I would get my hands on whatever information I could, via his search history, private messages, and emails, to find out what was happening. To help him. Because my first responsibility is to be his parent, and being a parent includes doing whatever it takes, at the risk of whatever ire it might invoke, to protect my child. I don’t need him to like everything I do, but I do need for him to be okay. That matters more.
* Raphael is a teenager living and writing in Cape Town. You can generally find him on the train between Fish Hoek and Newlands where he attends Westerford High school. Apart from school and writing, he spends his time in coffee shops and book stores, chasing after cats and trying to overcome his addiction to Hugh Grant’s ashamed face (which is the best). He loves cooking and interior design and wishes to one day convince someone rich and old to help him start his own guest house, but for now he’ll just make supper for himself and try to re-arrange the furniture without being shunned by the rest of the family.
** This article first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes.
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